Where to start Church history, after Acts?

URA said:

So I'll be teaching a Church History class in the near future, to students who are already familiar with Acts & the rest of the New Testament (the usual starting point for Church history--for very good reason!) I still plan to recap a little, but when we get into it, I don't want to focus on stuff they already know.

I could do some Roman persecution, or Church Fathers' writings, early monasticism, the Apostles' lives...but I don't know what would be the best thing to start with. Any recommendations?

Good visuals, sources, and/or videos are big bonuses, if you have any you can share. I teach high schoolers, so they can handle some higher-level content, but they still like flashy colors & good visuals.

Thanks!

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Well, I did not read this book, but it has good reviews on Amazon.

2000 Years of Christ's Power:

'History of World Christian Movement' (Vol.1)
- Earliest Christianity to1453.
- Dale T. Irvin & Scott W. Sunquist
---
Kindle ebook

URA said:

So I'll be teaching a Church History class in the near future, to students who are already familiar with Acts & the rest of the New Testament (the usual starting point for Church history--for very good reason!) I still plan to recap a little, but when we get into it, I don't want to focus on stuff they already know.

I could do some Roman persecution, or Church Fathers' writings, early monasticism, the Apostles' lives...but I don't know what would be the best thing to start with. Any recommendations?

Good visuals, sources, and/or videos are big bonuses, if you have any you can share. I teach high schoolers, so they can handle some higher-level content, but they still like flashy colors & good visuals.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Try the less traveled road of 1st century Christianty focusing on Jewish Christianty and the split between the Jews and Gentiles. Here are some basic facts.


Note: I'm not a Messianic however it's an interesting subject to explore and a good start.

Blessings

URA said:

So I'll be teaching a Church History class in the near future, to students who are already familiar with Acts & the rest of the New Testament (the usual starting point for Church history--for very good reason!) I still plan to recap a little, but when we get into it, I don't want to focus on stuff they already know.

I could do some Roman persecution, or Church Fathers' writings, early monasticism, the Apostles' lives...but I don't know what would be the best thing to start with. Any recommendations?

Good visuals, sources, and/or videos are big bonuses, if you have any you can share. I teach high schoolers, so they can handle some higher-level content, but they still like flashy colors & good visuals.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I always recommend three books:

1) Church History in Plain Language by Dr. Bruce Shelley
2) The Story of Christianity (Vol. 1 and 2) by Dr. Justo L. Gonzales
3) The Orthodox Church by Met. Kallistos Ware

The first two are broad overviews of the history of Christianity, focused more strongly on events in Western history. The third is focused, obviously, on the history of Eastern Orthodoxy.

I think that something that covers the history of Oriental Orthodoxy would also be good here, but I have nothing that I can personally recommend, as I am more out of my depth on non-Chalcedonian Christianity. We have several Oriental Orthodox members, such as @dzheremi , who would be better qualified to offer suggestions I am certain.

I would also couple this reading list with getting some familiarity with the Apostolic Fathers, in particular I'd recommend the Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Didache to begin with. For this purpose I'd recommend the translation by Maxwell Staniforth.

-CryptoLutheran

Addendum: The first two books I recommended are from Protestant writers (Evangelical and Methodist respectively), and while I do not recall anything especially biased in that regard, it might also help to have a Catholic author too. While I have no personal familiarity with it, I have heard good things from our Catholic friends over the years about Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger (written before he was Pope Benedict XVI). Again, I don't have familiarity with it, but have seen it regularly recommended, and so it might be worthwhile to add to a possible reading list.

Addendum part Deux: I would also recommend Dr. Ryan Reeves YouTube Channel. It's not exactly reading, but based on my viewing of his videos, they are well done and informative.

I recommend Clement of Rome and his Epistle to the Corinthians.

ViaCrucis said:

I think that something that covers the history of Oriental Orthodoxy would also be good here, but I have nothing that I can personally recommend, as I am more out of my depth on non-Chalcedonian Christianity. We have several Oriental Orthodox members, such as @dzheremi , who would be better qualified to offer suggestions I am certain.

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With the important caveat that I do not have a copy of it myself and I have not read it (I should probably rectify that as soon as my finances allow me to...), we do actually now have a book in English that is intended as a kind of "bird's-eye view" of our communion (cf. HE Metropolitan Kallistos' book for EO), Oriental Orthodoxy Revealed by Andrew Youssef. It has very good reviews on Amazon from Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike, if that sort of thing is likely to sway anyone who is on the fence about trying out this sort of thing. I do know that its publisher, Agora University Press, is the foremost publisher of specifically Oriental Orthodox authors in the English language in the United States, and as I own several books that they've published (just not this one, yet), I would be very surprised if it were anything other than excellent.

There are several English books available about the individual churches of our communion, but that's the only one I know of in the English language that attempts to give a short account of the communion as a whole.

AlexB23 said:

Well, I did not read this book, but it has good reviews on Amazon.

2000 Years of Christ's Power:

2,000 Years of Christ’s Power Vol. 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers: Needham, Nick: 9781781917787: Amazon.com: Books

2,000 Years of Christ’s Power Vol. 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers [Needham, Nick] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power Vol. 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers

www.amazon.com

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Yes, I have heard good reports of Nick Needham's work. It's available on special offer at the moment at this site: 2000 Years of Christ's Power - 5 Volume Pack (Pack) by Nick Needham It's in 5 volumes and should cost £99.95 but is on offer at £64.97

David Lamb said:

Yes, I have heard good reports of Nick Needham's work. It's available on special offer at the moment at this site: 2000 Years of Christ's Power - 5 Volume Pack (Pack) by Nick Needham It's in 5 volumes and should cost £99.95 but is on offer at £64.97

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That is nice. I have to tell you a secret: Nick Needham was available in PDF format, and I fed it into an artificial intelligence, cos I wanted to make the AI on my computer smarter about the church, so I can partake in theology discussions on this forum (plus, I will tell you guys when the AI is being quoted). Now, if I have any questions about church history, I ask the locally run artificial intelligence software, and it uses the book as a source. £65 is pretty affordable though. If the book has minimal bias, I could buy it for my dad. My parents and I are newer Catholics, but from the AI responses, the book does a good job at explaining the history of the Catholic and Protestant churches.